@mike300zxt, Used games have been around 25 years, but how long has used games sales been as high as new game sales. But not until the mid 2000's did EB Games and Gamestop start to drastically cut into the profits of new game sales. Industries are slow moving beasts, it takes years of analyzing for shifts to take place. It's been about 10 years since used game markets have started to increase in momentum, and these article and statements from developers and publishers and console makers is the industry kicking back. For this industry to be healthy, more sales need to occur on new games (whether new at $60 or new at $30). How do they reduce turnover of games? Let me guess...make them better? With what money. Go and ask Gamestop for a loan? Not saying all developers are out of money, but the money you have results in the games you get.

The devs are saying, buy the game new and will give you better ones in the future. Buy used, and you have no one to blame but yourself if in the future you continue to get crappier and crappier games.

Reading all these comments over the last few weeks on all these "used game" topics, I'm sad thinking I'm gamer and I'm considered part of this poorly-informed and low class group of people. I can't believe people continue to complain about this. On one hand they complain they want better games, better graphics, more gameplay hours, blah, blah, blah. On the other hand, they don't to pay $60 for a game because they believe the game is crap (which is completely objective, as I could find a game great whereas someone else could find it total crap). But that doesn't mean, I'm saying you go buy every game that's $60, I'm saying, if you want to play a game or think it's worth buying, then do not buy the game used. Wait like old days for the new game price to drop. It will eventually fall into a price range that would be more acceptable to your budget, and that dev will get some profits. And don't miss this point, because it's the most important of them all. Those profits would be in turn, used to create a new game, addressing the issues you had with past games (more gameplay, less bugs, better graphics/story, etc). The whole point is that if you buy a game, you should buy it new. If you don't think it's worth $60, wait for it to drop into the price range you want to spend for it. Otherwise, when you buy used, that money goes nowhere but Gamestop/Amazon/etc's pocket. And they don't build games.

Won't even be pre-ordering COD MW3. And I'm not a BF homer either. I preferred WaW and MW2 and BO to BF:BC and BC2. Problem with COD is they haven't "got it right" the last 2 iterations of multiplayer. MW2 was plagued with hacks and quirky gameplay (quickscoping, and yes it existed in previous versions, but became a problem in MW2 with convergence of YouTube Montages.....that an entire topic in itself). BO still has some lag issues. Treyarch claims their logic is no different than its predecessors, but when people are shooting you before you come around a corner, something's not right. BF3 looks like something fresh and new, while MW3 looks like MW2, in a different setting. And being a developer, I'm concerned about two separate development groups working together on one project, and the dev group that should be the lead has lost a large portion of the staff that made them great to begin with. That's a big red flag for me for potential bugs, and issues. And to top it off Activision couldn't have picked a worse time to announce a pay-to-play service. Regardless of the fact it's not taking away free multiplayer, consumers don't hear it that way. They think your removing functionality and now you have to pay for it (even if you aren't). THis is one time, you don't want to be the ground breaking company.

I guarantee this next console will also be gimmicky. It will be to further attract a young generation and party gaming (casual/non-gamers). Nintendo is not longer in competition with the other consoles, because they have different markets. MS and Sony consoles are for "hardcore" gaming. I use "hardcore" to describe normal gaming and not social/casual gaming. Nintendo is so far out of the "hardcore" gaming base, they will likely never get their "hardcore" gaming community back. And as long as they can find the next gimmick, I don't blame them. 85 million units for a far more inferior system and selling at a profit from day one, is good business. Nintendo will just have more turnover with customers and will never really gain a loyal customer base as MS and Sony have.

Why do they even throw PC in there. That's like comparing apples to oranges. PCs should always be better than consoles. Consoles are built on hardware designs from 4 or 5 years ago. PS3 and Xbox look exactly the same (except for the brightness levels). Details are the same though. Pointless to even bring PCs into the mix, unless you just compare different types of PCs and video cards to determine which video card handles the graphics the best.

3D glasses that give the appearance of 3D isn't good enough. It's been done, and was unsuccessful at catching on with mainstream gaming. I do think that 3D gaming is one of the next steps in the evolution of gaming, but it will need to be a "portal" into a virtual environment. Where your head movements will dictate your frame of reference in the game. The only problem with a 3D environment is that is caters more towards first person perspective games.

For the dual system owners (360 and PS3), what's the difference (if any) between online play? Is XBox Live worth having, is it more/less reliable? Matchmaking better/worse? Amount of gamers online at time?

I'm a 360 owner, but I don't hate the PS3. These comparisons, are marginal and will not affect the overall game experience in any of these games. Both systems will always output similarly gorgeous games in their own right. I don't know anyone that was ticked off because they saw an extra leaf in a game on one system rather than another. I think both systems have good qualities, but I don't know enough about PS3 to make bad comments about it. I will say that PS3 has blu-ray, which is a huge plus, but I've read articles in magazines and other websites, that says some developers dislike PS3 because it's harder to develop for (more complex). It's almost like Sony built a system before it's time. They are losing a ton of money on the PS3, not because of poor sales, but because they are selling an entire game system, with a blu-ray disc player, for less than a stand-alone blu-ray disc player. I think Sony used PS3 to spearhead it's attempt to change the industry medium from DVD to Blu-Ray, which it's done successfully. So in Sony's eyes a few years of losses on PS3 might not mean anything compared to the royalties they are pulling in now that Blu-Ray is the High Def standard. I digress. Here's where I need a few PS3 owner's opinions. The best part of Xbox 360 is the XBox Live. I don't know one 360 owner that doesn't have XBox Live. It does cost money, but I assume that's to support the servers and upgrade hardware and software as they see fit. I don't know how reliable the Playstation Network is, but I can't see how they can continue to be competitive without making users pay for it.